To Jules, the reverend’s estate was truly spectacular. Not exactly pauper’s quarters.
“I guess he doesn’t buy into the whole shedding-of-earthly-possessions thing.”
“Well, maybe the school owns it and he just stays here; I’m not sure.”
Jules whistled under her breath. “I take it Blue Rock Academy isn’t cheap.”
Edie’s lips pursed. “You get what you pay for, Jules; you should know that. In the case of your sister, money’s not the issue. I’ve talked to Max. He’s agreed to help.” Max Stillman was Shaylee’s father, or at least the sperm donor and heir to the “Stillman Timber fortune” that Jules had heard about ever since her mother had met him nearly nineteen years ago. Theoretically, Shaylee was next in line for the money, except that Max had never been close to his daughter, and what little interest he’d had in Shaylee had waned since the birth of Max Junior, his son with his second and much younger wife, Hester. Max had come into the world about four years earlier, not long after the time Shaylee had become “a handful.” Shaylee’s title had morphed, of course, from “a handful” to “a problem.”
Jules adjusted her cap against the heavy drizzle. “It just doesn’t feel right … Shay getting hauled off to the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m doing what the judge ordered,” Edie said, marching up the last few steps toward the main house, where one of the black poodles was pacing along the wide back porch. Its companion was busy sniffing a sodden azalea. “Let me remind you that Shay’s about out of options. It was this or a juvenile detention center, and that’s only because of her age. She’ll be eighteen in June, and then she won’t be eligible for any get-out-of-jail-free cards.” Edie shuddered. “I just did as the judge ordered: checked out the school, filed the paperwork, got Shay admitted. I even talked to your cousin Analise. She went there, you know. A junkie. Turned her life around and is in nursing school, so please don’t give me any grief about it, Jules. The school is legit.”
“What about Lauren Conway?”
“If she’s missing, well, then I’m sorry, but it sounds like a matter for the police.” Edie sent her a dark look. “You need to move on, Julia. It’s time you take charge of your own life and pray that your sister makes the most of this opportunity to turn her life around.” Edie touched Jules’s wet sleeve, and her expression softened. “I swear, sometimes you take on the whole world. You’re not even twenty-five; you’re at the point where you should be having the time of your life. Instead you act like you’re pushing forty, worrying about Shaylee, when it doesn’t do any good.”
The wind kicked up, teasing at Edie’s hair. “I know it’s because of Rip, honey, and God, I wish you hadn’t been there that night….” Her voice lowered. “I wish none of us had been. Oh, damn.” She blinked rapidly, fighting tears. Turning quickly, Edie hurried up the remaining stairs, leaving Jules, stunned at her mother’s glimmer of understanding, alone on the patio.
“Wow,” she whispered, clearing her throat.
Suddenly she wondered what had happened to the dogs. She hadn’t seen them slip inside, but they were gone, the backyard feeling suddenly barren and lonely, brittle tree limbs rattling in the wind.
Jules followed her mother through the side gate and along the path to the front of the house, where Edie was digging through her purse. She snagged the keys and, all motherly concern erased from her expression, gave Jules the once-over. “I thought you had a job interview this morning.”
Jules tensed. God, it was hard to keep up with her mother’s shifting moods. “I called and canceled. I thought this was more important.”
“That was foolish.” Edie scowled as she climbed into her vehicle. “And you can’t afford to throw away an opportunity like that, Julia. There aren’t a lot of job openings for
teachers at this time of the year.” Edie spoke as if she were an employment expert when, in truth, she’d worked barely a day in her life.
“I think they were hiring from somewhere within the district,” Jules said, stretching the truth a bit. “I have a friend who works at the school as a secretary, and she said someone was transferring in.”
“Well for God’s sake, Jules, get the transferee’s job! Unless you just love being a waitress. And why can’t your ‘friend’ help you?” She made air quotes to indicate she thought Jules was lying.
She was.
“Can’t your
friend
put in a good word for you?” Edie persisted.
“Maybe.”
“Oh, Lord, Jules, I just don’t get you. You’re educated, you had a great husband—”
“Who cheated on me. Not so great, Mom. Let’s not talk about Sebastian. Not now. Okay? We’ve got more pressing issues.”
With a flip of her wrist, Edie turned on the ignition, then rolled down the window to continue the conversation. “I know you care about Shay, Julia. I do, too. But it’s time for each of us to take responsibility for our own actions. Not just Shay, but you, too.” With that, she shoved the Lexus into reverse, backed up, then rammed the big SUV into drive and roared off.
Soaked to her skin, Jules flipped off the hood of her sweatshirt as she slid behind the wheel. The old sedan sparked to life on her first try. Like her mother, Jules headed away from the big house. But as she flicked a glance in the rearview mirror, she spied the fussy woman with the forced smile looking through the windowpanes surrounding the massive front doors.
A shiver slid down Jules’s spine, and her teeth began to chatter.
It had been a helluva day.
And it wasn’t yet noon.
CHAPTER 3
Cooper Trent crossed the campus quickly, bowing his head against the sharp wind, heavy with the promise of yet more snow. The ground was still white from the last storm, an icy blanket that covered the dry grasses and clung tenaciously to the branches of nearby trees.
Trent had only fifteen minutes between his classes, and he’d been summoned by his boss: Reverend Tobias Lynch. He knew what to expect; there had been talk of another student being accepted by the academy. He or she was on the way, though Trent hadn’t yet heard the details. No one had.
That was the way this place worked—a public face of earnestness, congeniality, kindness, and openness, but behind closed doors, Lynch ruled the place with an iron fist. Oh, in all the groups, there was always lots of talk about personal freedoms and open discussions and working through problems, but the truth of the matter was that here, at Blue Rock Academy, there were more closed-door meetings and secret agendas than anyone could guess.
Hence, the rumor mill was always pumping out gossip, and there had been mention of a new student arriving midterm. As he passed the flagpole in front of the administration
building, he guessed that his number was up. No doubt he’d been chosen as the group leader to catch the new pupil.
Which was just as well. As the latest teacher hired, he needed more responsibility, more trust, and he wanted to blend in. He couldn’t risk that anyone would guess his true reasons for applying for the job at the academy. Though he had all the credentials he needed for the position of physical education teacher, he was really working undercover, a private investigator searching for clues in the disappearance of Lauren Conway. The local sheriff’s department had exhausted all their leads, according to Cheryl and Ted, parents of the missing girl.
He hurried up two broad steps and through glass doors to the admin building, where warm air and the smell of some kind of cleaner greeted him.
He winked at Charla King as he passed her desk and was rewarded with one of her frosty glares. Hell, she was uptight. Charla was school/church secretary and accountant, and she took her job seriously. All the time. In her fifties, with close-cropped hair, rimless glasses, and a tightly set, if sagging jaw, she believed it was her personal mission from God to balance the books to the penny and see that the academy was always in the black. Bean counter to the max.
She turned her attention back to her computer and the grid of numbers on the screen as he made his way through the glassed-in cubicles where others were working diligently at their assigned tasks.
His boots, now wet with melted snow, rang up the short flight of stairs to Lynch’s business office, the place where he dealt with secular business. The director also kept a smaller, cozier office in a room within the chapel complex. That book-lined cranny was relegated for conversations about faith, personal problems, or spiritual matters. Dr. Lynch also used it to meditate about all things theological.
Or so the company line went.
Trent rapped on the half-open door with his knuckles, then stepped inside the pine-paneled room. Tobias was seated at his oversized desk.
“Trent!” Lynch said, smiling widely and waving at one of the visitor chairs. “Here, take a seat.”
Crossing toward the desk, Trent noted Adele Burdette, looking distracted as usual. The headmistress for the female students stood at the window, resting a hip on the sill as she stared at the roiling waters of Lake Superstition. In her midforties, Adele was trim and strong, a sour woman who never bothered with makeup. Her curly red hair was scraped back from her head in a perpetual ponytail that was starting to silver.
“We’ve just got a few minutes,” Lynch said, “but I thought I’d bring you up to speed about a new student.” A tall, thin man whose posture reminded Trent of a modern Abraham Lincoln, Lynch seemed to hunch over his desk. Behind his tinted glasses were eyes as dark as obsidian, eyes that, Trent guessed, didn’t miss much. “It’s short notice, I know, but sometimes that’s how things work around here.” He offered a brief smile, stretching his mustache and soul patch. Lynch fulfilled many roles at Blue Rock: religious leader, theology teacher, headmaster for the boys, and dean of faculty. “So, I just got all the paperwork this morning via fax. Her name is Shaylee Stillman, and she goes by ‘Shay.’”
Every muscle in Trent’s body tightened. No way. Not Jules’s sister. He must’ve heard wrong.
“She’s had her share of run-ins with the law, and her mother is worried that once she turns eighteen, things will only get worse.”
Burdette was nodding, agreeing. “The mother’s right; I read all the reports.”
“Where’s she from?” Trent forced himself to lean back
in his chair, feigning nonchalance. If the new student was Shay Stillman, things were going to get a lot more complicated. A lot.
“Seattle,” Burdette supplied.
Son of a bitch!
“Your neck of the woods,” Lynch said.
“I’m from Spokane.”
“Oh. Right.” Lynch rubbed his tiny beard with one finger as he studied the top sheet of a stack of papers.
Burdette was equally distracted, her eyes on the window again.
So much for their concern about the new girl, Trent thought.
“Anyway,” Lynch went on, “I’ve added her to your pod.” He slid the faxed documents across the wide expanse of his desk. “Here’re her records. Check out the questionnaire.”
“Classic,” Burdette muttered.
“When is she due to arrive?”
“Within the hour.”
“Today?” Trent tried to keep the concern from his voice.
“She’s on her way. Last report was that the plane was just north of Eugene.”
Trent kept his face impassive, but inside he was fighting a full-blown panic. If she was one and the same Shay Still-man—and it sounded as if she was—then she was Jules’s half sister and a holy terror. The age was right, the attitude was toxic, and she was coming from the Seattle area. It all added up to trouble for Trent. Big trouble. “You sure my pod’s the best?”
“Why not?” Lynch frowned. For all his outward talk of open discussions and being respectful of others’ opinions, Tobias Lynch was about as bending as an oak tree. The reverend didn’t like being opposed. In Trent’s short time here at the academy, he’d learned that much. Though Lynch saw himself as a kind, judicious, fair-minded leader who guided
with a steady but thoughtful hand, in truth, the guy considered himself the only person capable of making the “right” decision. His word was etched in stone.
Still, Trent had to fight this one; he couldn’t be in close proximity to Jules’s sister. It was just too damned dangerous. He picked his words carefully. “Sometimes a troubled girl needs a strong female leader, someone who can relate to what she’s going through.”
Lynch disagreed. “Not this one—female dominated, confused about father figures.” He smiled. “Perfect for you.”
Burdette added, “Both Rhonda’s and my groups are full, and we’ve always had mixed-gender pods. It’s no big deal. Until we can hire another teacher and leader, we all have to pull our weight—more than our weight, actually. If there’s a problem, you know that any of the girls can talk to us individually, and there are female counseling sessions.” As she looked at him over her shoulder, tiny lines emerged between her eyebrows. “Do you have a problem with taking on this one?”
Oh, yeah, a major problem.
“Not at all,” he lied, and hoped to hell he sounded convincing. “Just talking aloud, wondering what’s best for her.”
“Good.” The reverend seemed relieved. “We always put the students’ needs first. Since you’re in line for the next new student, she’ll be in your group.” He was nodding to himself, silently congratulating himself on a job well done. “Should be interesting.”
More than interesting.
He noted that the tiny lines of suspicion on Burdette’s forehead hadn’t disappeared. There was stress here at the school, more than anyone let on. Being down a teacher was just one of the problems.
Lynch forced a smile and rose to his feet, signifying that the meeting was over.
Trent couldn’t wait to leave. He needed time to think
about how he was going to handle Shay. Would she recognize his name? They’d never met face-to-face, but there was a damned good chance that Jules had mentioned him.
And not with fondness.
Nope. Their breakup had been anything but amicable.
Great.
Just. Damned. Great!
Shaylee Stillman was a complication he didn’t need. He left the building and half-jogged to the gym, where his office was nestled on the far side of the locker rooms. He tossed Shaylee’s file onto the desk and flipped it open, and sure enough, Jules’s little sister stared up at him from a photo. He suspected it was a candid shot; the girl’s eyes glimmered with rebellion, anger, and mistrust.